Feeling cool again

So last weekend I got to hook up with some good friends that I have not seen in a while and play some music. Granted we are not an all star band by any means. Jim just bought his first electric guitar and is still figuring out the intricacies of electric vs. acoustic and Chris and myself just really have not been playing much for the last few years. I have to say I had a blast. My fingers hurt like all sorts of swear words because they are as soft as a milk maids but that will change in time. I really have missed playing music and have been looking for an excuse to get a hobby that did not involve working on my house. I guess this is what I have been looking for because I cannot stop thinking about it. I have been playing both my bass and my classical guitar this week and I think I am going to restring my steel string and break out my electric as well. I guess I am a bit obsessive/compulsive but it is a nice break from working on the computer all the time. Before I started programming I had WoW, World of Warcraft for all you non techie folks. I could log in and kill people and waste all sorts of time on meaningless pixels. Now that I spend my days on the computer I really have no desire to do this even though killing people from Uzbekistan (sp?) with poor english skills is entertaining as hell. I have even started looking on ebay for a new bass. Surprisingly they are about 1/3 the price there as they are in the store. The guys are coming over to my house this weekend if all goes as planned and hopefully we will get at least one song down. Ya gotta start somewhere after all.

The end of the road is here

Tonight H and I did some painting in the master bedroom. We got a ton done. This is the last room to be painted to complete the top two floors of the house. As soon as this room is done the painting supplies will be put away for at least 6 months. I am hoping much longer. There are many other projects that I am planning in the near future and I do not know when I will get any of them done. Thankfully painting is not among them at the moment. I consider this my "mini retirement" from the brush. I have made a part time career out of this activity since December of '02 and I will not miss it at all. Sayonara Mr. Brush. May you burn in Hell.

MY SERVER IS UP!!!!!!

After basically the most stressful week of my entire life, today I was able to get my server back up. We had to replace the motherboard and I cannot believe the replacement price for a motherboard for a 7 year old server (actually I am not sure how old this thing is but it uses 4 - 700 mhz pentium III xeon processors if that means anything to you). Regardless the sucker is back up and running smoothly. I have caught up and actually advanced to beyond where I was last friday. Now I just have to figure out how to migrate this server to a newer more reliable server. That makes me wish I had spent more time playing with Linux server setups. Anyway, things are definitely better for the moment. Perhaps I wont hit 90 hours this week after all.

AAAAAAAARGH!!!!

Today will officially go down in history as "Black Monday". I finally thought that I was starting to make some headway at work and out of nowhere one of my servers blows up. I could type for hours telling you in how many different ways this has screwed me but we will leave it at this will probably set me back about 6 days at least. That is just to get back to where I was as of friday. Stress is building and my head is pounding. I am beyond pissed and I really just want to break shit. I know it won't help but it sure would feel good. Enough whining. . . back to work.

My just desserts

So, almost two years ago now I decided to take a chance and get into a "career job". For the most part this has been a really good choice for me. I have learned a lot and I have increased my confidence in my programming skills quite a bit. At the moment I am just plain disgusted. I know that this job will give me the skills and the opportunities to move on to bigger an better things and it is very hard for me to wait until that time is right. I really don't know where I am going with this other than to say that I am really sick and tired of people. Stupid people who's entire existance seems to be to make my life harder. I have to deal with these folks on a daily basis and it is really putting me in a foul mood. My company doesn't seem to realize that everyone has a limit. They are pushing me towards mine very quickly. They continue to load more and more work on me and even working 50 - 60 hour weeks I cannot do more than just tread water. Even when things start going smoothly I end up having to clean up messes created by others. I feel put upon and abused. I feel like I am lying at the bottom of the hill that shit rolls down and it is piling up on me. One of my co-workers who used to be my boss is quite possibly the most annoying person I have ever worked with. Generally he is a nice guy yet he has this ability to take even the most minor issue, escalate it or confuse it with something of more importance and pass it along to me. This happens at least four times a day and I just want to rip my hair out. My all time favorite example is once when working on a project (actually thrown into a project) he kept sending out emails to our VP saying that we had everything we needed to do the work. The truth was all we had was a poorly filled out questionnaire that basically held no value for me other than to use as tinder. My breaking point hit when I recieved an email that he had sent out to several people in our office including my VP saying "We have everything we need. Now we just have to get it." Wow. That is soooo fucking profound. It pretty much summed up to everyone involved that this man actually has not a single clue as to what he is doing. Yet he still remained my boss for at least another month. Now he is in charge of gathering information for me so I can concentrate on programming. I don't think there is a single email that crosses his desk that he does not forward to me asking what I need. This includes emails that I am also included on. *mad laughter commences*

Another issue I have been having lately is that I feel a bit like a prisoner. I miss seeing my friends. I miss being able to go to the bar for dinner and a drink. I miss having any freedom whatsoever. It seems that if I leave my house to do anything other than go to the office it has to be commando mission and must be completed as soon as possible so I can be home in case I am needed for work. On call 24/7. Right now life pretty much sucks. /end rant.

I would never have guessed this one.

Your results:
You are Wash (Ship Pilot)

Wash (Ship Pilot) 80% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 70% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 65% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 60% Alliance 60% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 50% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 45% River (Stowaway) 40% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 40% Inara Serra (Companion) 25% A Reaver (Cannibal) 20%

You are a pilot with a good if not silly sense of humor. You take pride in your collection of toys. You love your significant other.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz

The "Decklet" completed

I have been meaning to post this but work has been crazy to say the least. The decklet is done and I am now on to work on inside projects. Well. . . at least inside the garage. We will see. I have enough painting to keep me occupied for a while but I do have some organizational issues going on in the garage. I guess I had better make up my mind. Oh, and I know I said I was going to post a picture of my new fence but surprisingly chain link fences dont really show up well in photos. At least mine doesn't.